1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to clock signals in a transceiver. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for generating and distributing clock signals in a gigabit Ethernet transceiver which includes more than one constituent transceiver.
2. Description of Related Art
A transceiver includes a transmitter and a receiver. In a traditional half-duplex transceiver, the transmitter and the receiver can operate with a common clock signal since the transmitting and receiving operations do not occur simultaneously.
In a full-duplex transceiver, the transmitting operation occurs simultaneously with the receiving operation. The full-duplex transceiver needs to operate with at least two clock signals, a transmit clock signal (TCLK) and a sampling clock signal. The TCLK signal is used by the transmitter to regulate transmission of data symbols. The sampling clock signal is used by the receiver to regulate sampling of the received signal at an analog-to digital (A/D) converter. At the local receiver, the frequency and phase of the sampling clock signal are adjusted by a timing recovery system of the local receiver in such a way that they track the transmit clock signal of the remote transmitter. The sampled received signal is demodulated by digital signal processing function blocks of the receiver. These digital processing function blocks may operate in accordance with either the TCLK signal or the sampling clock signal, provided that signals crossing boundaries between the two clock signals are treated appropriately so that any loss of signal or data samples is prevented.
The IEEE 802.3ab standard (also called 1000BASE-T) for 1 gigabit per second (Gb/s) Ethernet full-duplex communication system specifies that there are four constituent transceivers in a gigabit transceiver and that the full-duplex communication is over four twisted pairs of Category-5 copper cables. Since a Gigabit Ethernet transceiver has four constituent transmitters and four constituent receivers, its operation is much more complex than the operation of a traditional full-duplex transceiver. The four twisted pairs of cable may introduce different delays on the signals, causing the signals to have different phases. This, in turn, requires the gigabit Ethernet transceiver to have four A/D converters operating in accordance with four respective sampling clock signals. In addition, the problem of switching noise coupled from the digital signal processing blocks of the gigabit Ethernet transceiver to the four A/D converters must also be addressed.
Therefore, there is a need to have an efficient method and system for generating the clock signals for a gigabit Ethernet transceiver. There is also a need to distribute the clock signals such that effect of switching noise is minimized.